Once Bitten, Twice Shy

by Wood, C. C.

  I had no idea what he meant, but nodded to him anyway. “Be careful, Finn.”

  He winked at me, shut the door, and disappeared into the trees along the side of the road. He moved so quickly all I saw was a blur. I began to gnaw on my thumbnail, eyes on the place where he had vanished.

  “Don’t worry, Ivie. Finn has magic in his blood. He was a caster of spells long before he became a vampire. He will be fine.”

  My eyes moved to the rearview mirror, meeting the bright blue of Conner’s gaze and I nodded.

  “It’s been three minutes. Any word from Lex?” Donna asked.

  Conner shook his head. “I haven’t received the signal yet.”

  I had no idea how Lex intended to signal Conner. I’d asked, but he’d merely said, “It’s complicated.”

  “We go in if we haven’t heard from him after seven minutes, right?” she asked, worry plain in her voice.

  I didn’t say anything, but seven minutes just seemed like an arbitrary number to me. Why not five or ten?

  “Yes, Donna.” Conner’s voice was tight with stress.

  I moved my gaze to the back of Donna’s neck until she turned and looked at me. I gave a tiny shake of my head, warning her to be patient and not pester Conner. He needed to be focused. She sighed but didn’t say anything else.

  The minutes ticked by so slowly that I thought I was going insane. At the six minute mark, there was still no word from Lex. My heart was beating fast and hard in my chest. This couldn’t be good.

  Suddenly, blue fire exploded about thirty feet to our right, so bright that it was clearly visible through the trees. Conner shifted the SUV into drive.

  “I think that is our fucking cue.” He peeled out and sped down the road, going the same direction as Lex had. “Remember, stay in the goddamn car until I call for you. I’m leaving the vehicle in the trees near the building. Do not leave it or I will blister both your asses.”

  Donna made an annoyed sound, but I just squeaked. His threat to blister my ass didn’t sound nearly as fun as when Lex did it.

  “Goddamn, fucking mistake to bring you two along,” I heard him mutter under his breath.

  “It was your only choice and you know it. If you hadn’t brought us with you, we would have followed anyway,” Donna retorted.

  Conner didn’t respond because he was steering the car off the road, barely slowing down. He shot between two trees, mowing down smaller brush and saplings until the SUV was hidden from the road. Through the branches of the tree to our left, I saw a building with the sedan Lex had driven parked in front of it, all four doors and the trunk open, and not a single vampire in sight. This was not good.

  Conner turned and pinned us both with a harsh blue stare. “Stay down, be careful, and do not hesitate to kill if necessary. If you hesitate, you will die.”

  With those ominous words, he leapt from the car and shut the door behind him. He rapped on the window next to Donna.

  “Lock the doors.”

  She nodded and reached over the driver’s seat to hit the automatic lock button. Conner didn’t move, merely pointed downward with his index finger. I understood he was being perfectly serious about us staying down. I climbed on to the floorboard and turned so I could see between the seats in front of me where the arm rest had been lowered.

  Donna pressed her hand to the glass of the window. “I love you, Conner. Be careful.”

  He winked at her as Finn had winked at me and left so quickly that I had no idea which direction he was headed. Donna did the same thing I had done, crouching on the floorboard but facing me so we could see each other over the armrest.

  Somewhere nearby another explosion ripped through the trees, making the SUV shake and casting an eerie blue light inside the vehicle. I pulled my knees into my chest and wrapped my arms tightly around them. Then the howling began and I knew the werewolves had arrived.

  A few moments later I heard the screams of a woman quickly cut off. My wide eyes met Donna’s and she reached through the opening between the seats. I took her hand in mine and squeezed.

  “It will be okay, Ivie,” she reassured me.

  I didn’t respond. I hoped she was right, but I was also worried that she was wrong. More explosions and cries of pain drifted through the trees around us, along with howls and yips from the wolves. Some close, some further away. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, just that it felt like an eternity.

  Finally everything around us fell silent. Not even the birds were chirping. Yet a heavy layer of energy seemed to cover everything. It was oppressive. Strangely, I felt as though it were waiting to lash out and injure anyone that might be stupid enough to remain in the woods.

  As the quiet dragged on, Donna looked to me. “This isn’t good,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “Conner has cut himself off from me. He did it a few moments ago.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “After he turned me, I developed a telepathic link with Conner. Now, he’s shut it down on his end. That can only mean one thing.”

  My eyes widened as I understood what she was implying.

  “He’s either severely injured or he thinks he’s dying.” She raised her head and peeked out the window behind her, toward the building. “I can’t sit here, just a few hundred feet away, and do nothing while he dies.”

  I nodded. She was right. If Conner was in trouble, so was Lex. I couldn’t sit by and let him die.

  “So, what do we do?” I asked.

  She opened her mouth and I knew she was going to tell me to stay in the car. I lifted a hand to her.

  Using the connection between us, I commanded, “Do not tell me to stay in the car.”

  The look on her face would have been hilarious if the situation hadn’t been so dire. She wanted so badly to say those words, but I was keeping her from doing it. After a few seconds, I released my hold over her.

  “So what’s the plan?” I prompted.

  She grimaced at me. “I don’t have a plan exactly, except to go in and get our men and our friends and kill any bastards who get in the way.”

  I nodded. “Sounds simple enough.”

  She looked out the windows one more time, staying low. Then I watched as she crawled into the seat in front of me and lifted the mat off the floorboard where she had been sitting. There was a little trapdoor beneath it. My eyes bugged out of my head as she opened it to reveal three handguns.

  “Do you know how to use one of these?” she asked.

  I shook my head. Except for the time I’d almost shot Conner, I’d never held a gun in my life, much less fired one. I watched as she pulled it out, fiddled with it for a second until a clip popped out. She checked the clip, I assumed to see if it was full, before she put them back in. She pulled back the slide and revealed the bullet in the chamber as well.

  Then she popped the clip back into the gun and repeated the process with the other weapon. She reached back into the hiding spot and pulled out two more clips, which she checked over.

  “Since you can’t shoot, you need to stay right on my tail. No deviating from my path, no running off,” she stated calmly. “I’m faster and stronger than you, so I can block an attack long enough for you to do your mind control thing and then I’ll shoot whoever needs to be shot.”

  “What if we run into the warlock?” I asked.

  Donna looked at me. “I don’t know, but I guess I’ll try to shoot the bastard.”

  I knew it was the best plan we could come up with considering we were out of time if we wanted to help Lex and Conner.

  “Okay.”

  She stuck her head up again, looking all around the SUV. I assumed the coast was clear because she said, “Crawl through but try to stay low.”

  I gave her a look. “Why don’t you lower one side of the seats?” I asked. No use trying to wriggle over the top and draw attention to ourselves when I could just creep over the flattened seat.

  She rolled her eyes. “Dammit, I’m glad
you thought of that.” Then she reached over and lowered the passenger side seat.

  I moved over the seat and on to the floor board in front of her. Donna reached forward and grabbed the car keys out of the ignition, shoving them into her pocket.

  “We’re going to get out of the car on the driver’s side, at the same time,” she said. “But, first, I’m going to look on top of the car and beneath it just in case something nasty is waiting for us.”

  I nodded, glad she thought to check. I watched, holding my breath, as she opened the door just enough to stick her head out and look up. Then she peeked quickly beneath the car. She pulled the door closed without latching it shut.

  “We’re all clear. We’re going to move quickly and as quietly as possible. There’s nothing to hide behind in the fifty feet between the trees and the building, so you have to move as fast as possible.”

  I nodded.

  “Ready?”

  I nodded again, scared out of my mind that we were taking too much time, and that Conner and Lex would be dead by the time we got inside.

  Faster than I could see, Donna was out of the car, pulling me right along behind her. She quickly opened the driver’s door, locked the car, and shut both doors almost silently. I just barely heard the latches catch, but she winced as though they were a gunshot.

  “Move, move, move,” she urged, running so fast I could barely keep up. “Any supernatural being would have heard that.”

  I knew she was right and my heart turned to stone in my chest when I realized exactly how much danger we were in. We reached the edge of the building. Donna held a gun in one hand and my arm in another. She wasn’t taking any chances that we would be separated. She peeked around the corner and the coast must have been clear because she made a beeline for the front door.

  A few seconds later, we were inside. I released the breath I had been holding when my vision began to turn black around the edges. I sucked in a breath as quietly as possible, but Donna gave me a look that said even that was too loud.

  We crept down the hall, my front practically against her back. The building was oddly silent. My heart was pounding so hard, I was sure that any vampire in the building could hear it. We drew closer to a door at the end of the short hallway and Donna gestured for me to stop. There were faint noises coming from the other side.

  She brought my hand to her belt at the back of her jeans and gave me a look that said to hold on tight. Then used her now free hand to slowly and silently turn the door knob. The door made no sound as it swung open. The room in front of us was pitch black.

  Donna kept her gun tucked close to her front as she peeked around the door frame. I knew her night vision was much better than mine, but my skin still crawled when she nodded to me and began to move into the room. I followed her step for step, praying that the room was empty of bad creatures.

  The noises I heard before were getting louder and the muscles in my neck began to lock up. I just knew that something was behind me, but every time I glanced back, all I saw was the rectangle of light coming in from the open door behind us.

  Finally, Donna stopped and she must have been opening another door, because a dim light began to fill the room. I barely suppressed a gasp when I saw that the floor around us was strewn with bodies. There were at least five men and women scattered around the room, but I couldn’t tell exactly how many because some were missing body parts, such as legs, arms, and even heads.

  I wanted to puke at the sight of so much blood, but I was frozen in shock and fear. Only the tap of Donna’s hand on my arm brought me back to the present. She was staring at me with concern in her eyes, but I swallowed back the sickness that wanted to spill into my throat and nodded at her, telling her to go on.

  She repeated the process of peeking out the door and I realized that the noises I had been hearing were the thuds of fists on flesh and grunts of pain. When Donna turned to look at me, she lifted five fingers and mouthed the words, bad guys. I nodded. She then mouthed Lex and Conner’s names and gave me a thumbs up.

  I blew out a silent sigh of relief. Even if they were hurt, at least Lex and Conner were still fighting. She grinned at me and held up three fingers. Setting a slow beat with her fist, she began a silent countdown as her fist dropped, she tucked another finger in. When all three fingers were down, she began to move out into the room.

  I tried not to scream when I saw that Lex was fighting off two other vampires that carried freaking swords. He only had a huge iron rod that he picked up from somewhere and his shirt was in tatters, his torso covered in cuts and blood. Conner was taking on three men, a fourth lying headless on the floor. In Conner’s hands was an enormous battle axe. I assumed he took it off the dead vampire because I knew damn well he hadn’t gone in carrying one.

  Conner must have seen us out of the corner of his eye because his head snapped around, breaking his focus on the fight. One of his opponents slashed his thigh with a sword, causing him to cry out and go down on one knee.

  I flinched at the loud boom of the gun as Donna raised it and fired at the vampire who had cut her man. The bullet caught him in the shoulder, but all it seemed to do was piss him off. He started toward us, a blur of motion. The gun went off so many times I lost count, until it was empty. The vamp was still coming.

  I was frozen in shock, unable to focus enough to try and make the mental connection needed to stop him, when I saw the battle axe swing through the air and sever the approaching vampire’s head.

  I gave a short scream as blood sprayed everywhere and the bad guy’s body flopped lifelessly to the floor. Without sparing me a glance, Donna dropped the spent clip and reloaded the gun. Conner had turned away from us to face the other two men.

  I looked over at Lex and almost cried out again when I saw that he was distracted by our arrival as well. Somehow he managed to take out one of the vampires he had been fighting when we entered, but his other opponent had used the opportunity to pierce him through the gut with his sword. I watched in horror as the vamp yanked the sword out of Lex’s stomach, causing a rush of blood to leave my man’s body.

  The shock that froze me earlier disappeared and rage filled me. Without thinking twice, I reached out to that thread that I felt connecting me to all the vampires in the room, determining who was who. Within a split second I grasped three threads with my mind.

  “STOP!” I shrieked.

  Amazingly, all three of the remaining bad guys froze in place, not even batting an eyelash or making a sound. Lex, Conner, and Donna were all staring at me in shock. I pointed to the two Conner had been fighting.

  “Kill him,” I commanded. I was speaking to both of them.

  Woodenly, they turned to one another and swung their swords simultaneously. I watched with cold satisfaction as their heads separated from their bodies and they fell to the floor. Then I turned to the vampire who had been ready to kill Lex.

  “Ivie, wait,” Conner said. “We need him alive. He may have information we need.”

  I barely stopped myself from giving the vampire the order to disembowel himself. I wanted to see him suffer for what he had just done to Lex.

  “I’ll take the bastard,” a voice said.

  I looked around and didn’t see anything. Suddenly Finn appeared out of thin air, causing Donna and I both to jump. He was grinning at me.

  “Good job, Ivie. I couldn’t have done better myself if I had arrived in time.”

  I nodded to him, the adrenaline hitting me out of nowhere, causing my hands to shake as I pushed my hair off my face.

  Finn walked to the other vampire and placed a hand against his forehead while I forced the bad guy to remain still. He fought me hard, but the rage and adrenaline coursing through my body made me strong. I wasn’t sure what Finn was doing to the vampire, but his eyes rolled back in his head and he trembled as though he was having a stroke. All the while, Finn kept his palm on the vampire’s forehead, eyes closed.

  A few moments later, he opened his eyes and the vampire went l
imp, falling to the floor.

  “I know where the women are and everything this sad sack of shit knows about The Faction. You can do what you wish with him.”

  Before I could react to Finn’s words, Lex grabbed the sword that had fallen to the floor and cleaved the vampire’s head from his body. That done, he tossed the sword to the side, looking every inch the battle-hardened warrior he’d been while human.

  “Donna, I do believe you and I need to discuss what the words wait in the car mean?” Conner said through clenched teeth.

  I watched in horror and awe as my friend waved a hand at her pissed off vampire mate. “Pipe down, Fangboy. We saved your ass, didn’t we?”

  “It was under control,” Conner said softly.

  I chanced a look at Lex. Whether I saved his ass or not, I knew from that one look that I probably wouldn’t sit comfortably for at least a week. Not for the first time, I wondered why I had to fall in love with a fucking kinky vampire.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Though Lex looked as though he were ready to strangle me, I walked slowly over to him, stepping around headless bodies and one head.

  As I got closer, I said softly, “I’m sorry I made you angry, but I’m glad you’re going to be okay.”

  When I was within reach, he grabbed me by my shoulders and jerked me into a hard embrace.

  His lips brushed my hair in a light kiss. “Don’t ever scare me like that again,” he whispered. “I thought I would lose you for sure.”

  I pressed my body closer to his, not caring that I was getting his blood all over my clothes. I was just relieved he was still standing.

  “I can’t promise that,” I murmured, tilting my head back to meet his eyes. “Any time I think you’re in danger, my first instinct will be to protect you. I love you.”

  Lex sighed, brushing my hair back from my face and kissing my forehead. “That is a pretty apology, little one, and it makes me happy to know how deeply you care for me, but it won’t save you from punishment.”